In July 2008, results from several clinical trials of novel Alzheimer’s Disease treatments were presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease (ICAD 2008) in Chicago. Among these results was an 84-week phase II trial of TauRx’s Rember. Almost immediately,... Read more →

Sometimes we forget that doctors are just like everyday people. They have families, they are members of parent/teacher organizations (PTOs), they help their children with school projects and homework, and they, in many cases, are still repaying school loans. You name it, and yes, the doctor has probably... Read more →

In my previous post, The Gift of Life, I detailed the events surrounding my ongoing process of becoming a bone marrow donor. For this entry, I wanted to spend some time discussing the specifics of the process, in hopes of demystifying the concept of bone marrow donation and perhaps inspiring others to... Read more →

Welcome to the tenth edition of Drugs and Pharmacology. Today, we discuss a variety of topics from novel biological approaches to battling memory impairment to the bloody side effects of taking SSRIs and NSAIDs together. Remember, we review the latest blogs related to drugs — medicinal, recreational,... Read more →

One of the main functions of pharmaceutical representatives is to provide free samples to doctors’ offices instead of what has historically been their vocation: implementing authentic and ethical persuasion via presentations. Yet presently, samples are a priority and delivering them is the primary... Read more →

A recent issue of the journal Neurology published two separate case-controlled studies that showed a decreased risk for Parkinson’s disease associated with both cholesterol-lowering medication and blood pressure-lowering medication. A common class of cholesterol-lowering medications, HMG-CoA reductase... Read more →

Our series on Medicine and Law is starting to wind down. We’ve covered lots of topics including contract and consent, malpractice, causation, informed consent, and abandonment. Now we will talk about third-party liability. Third party liability means exactly what it says — that a different... Read more →

With the Olympics in full swing, I cannot help but marvel at the strength, power, skill, and commitment of the athletes. Many of these men and women seemed destined for sports from an early age, while others trained hard to beat the odds and become world-class athletes. Most of us watching the games... Read more →

The problems of childhood obesity are not exclusive to American soil. Both the U.S. and many European countries face this crisis. Various solutions have been proposed and executed. Everything from promoting exercise to teaching children about the origin of their food to banning candy or sweets on school... Read more →

Most humans do not have the power to predict the future, but we can see it. At least we can see one-tenth of a second of it. The May-June issue of the journal Cognitive Science published a review by Mark Changizi of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, claiming that the human visual system has evolved to... Read more →

There is a culture to medicine that I alluded to in my previous post about how everyone in the hospital is your boss. In essence, medicine is a profession like no other where “scutwork,” “malignancy” and “bad-mouthing” colleagues is standard practice. In the academic... Read more →